The mediating role of social support in promoting physical activity among children in South Africa

South African Journal of Physiotherapy

 
 
Field Value
 
Title The mediating role of social support in promoting physical activity among children in South Africa
 
Creator Gomwe, Howard Phiri, Lesego Marange, Chioneso Show
 
Subject Family medicine family encouragement; teacher encouragement; peer encouragement; physical activity; children.
Description Background: Low physical activity (PA) participation levels and increasing non-communicable diseases in children are concerning in South Africa and globally.Objectives: We sought to assess the mediating role of perceived social support factors on the relationship between PA enjoyment and PA levels among rural, peri-urban and urban school children.Method: A cross-sectional study was adopted to assess peer, family and teacher encouragement as mediators on the relationship between perceived PA enjoyment and perceived physical activity participation among children, using the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Older Children (PAQ-C). The sample comprised a random sample of primary school learners aged 9–14 years.Results: The sample consisted of 870 primary school learners with a mean age of 11.0 ± 1.49 years. Most participants were girls (n = 519; 59.7%). The findings suggest low levels of perceived PA participation (mean = 2.33, standard deviation [s.d.]: 0.43). Peer (β = 0.0187, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.0088, 0.0307), family (β = 0.0280, 95% CI: 0.0155, 0.0425) and teacher (β = 0.0242, 95% CI: 0.0127, 0.0378) encouragement partially mediates the relationship between perceived PA enjoyment and perceived PA participation. Family encouragement (β = 0.0158, 95% CI: 0.0017, 0.0311) has the most considerable mediating effect, followed by teacher encouragement (β = 0.0125, 95% CI: 0.0010, 0.0269).Conclusion: The findings demonstrated low levels of perceived PA participation in school learners. Therefore, we recommends including social factors as mediators in PA intervention programmes in primary schools.Clinical implications: Social support factors as mediators on the relationship between PA enjoyment and PA participation among children may improve children’s PA participation levels and help prevent non-communicable diseases in future.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2023-10-25
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — —
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/sajp.v79i1.1896
 
Source South African Journal of Physiotherapy; Vol 79, No 1 (2023); 10 pages 2410-8219 0379-6175
 
Language eng
 
Relation
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https://sajp.co.za/index.php/sajp/article/view/1896/3410 https://sajp.co.za/index.php/sajp/article/view/1896/3411 https://sajp.co.za/index.php/sajp/article/view/1896/3412 https://sajp.co.za/index.php/sajp/article/view/1896/3413
 
Coverage South Africa 2018-2023 Gender, Age
Rights Copyright (c) 2023 Howard Gomwe, Lesego Phiri, Chioneso Show Marange https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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